Attacks on health workers are on the increase despite an ongoing campaign to reduce the number of incidents.

There were 224 reported cases of violence, abuse and harassment on workers at South Downs Health NHS trust between January and March this year.

This was 44 more than between October and December last year.

Most of the incidents were verbal abuse, closely following by physical assault, intimidation and threats to attack.

The trust provides mental health and community services mainly for people living in the Brighton and Hove area.

The majority of incidents involved mental health patients, their relatives or their carers.

The trust has a zero tolerance campaign against people caught abusing its staff.

It encourages staff to report every incident so it can work on providing extra protection.

It said this was partly why the number had gone up.

Workers have also been given more training to learn how to cope with violent incidents and diffuse any problems before they develop.